Sunday, September 30, 2007

Why are we stuck in the 60's?

Fr. Ripperger: Hermeneutic of rupture dishonors the martyrs, saints

"If the Church is supposed to be so modern, then why are we still stuck in the 1960's? Why is the music from the 60's? Why are the vestments from the 60's? Why is the architecture still from the 60's?" So asks Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., in his talk on "Catholic Tradition and Liturgy". Fr. Ripperger makes three excellent points on the hermeneutic of rupture that I'd like to point out.

(1) An intentional break with Tradition is a form of impiety. It is impiety because it suggests that the spirituality of the great Saints, Martyrs and Doctors was somehow wrong, and by extension, that they were wrong. One cannot simultaneously venerate St. Dominic and at the same time denounce the Mass that fed Dominic's sanctity. All the saints perceived an attack on the Mass as an attack on them and on God directly. Thus, it is a form of impiety.

(2) An intentional break with Tradition is a sin against the fourth commandment. The fourth commandment enjoins us to honor our mothers and fathers, which Tradition and the Catechism apply to our superiors and spiritual fathers as well. This also applies to our forebearers, our "fathers" in the faith. By approving things that our forefathers would have never stood for, we dishonor the things they believed and died for. Athanasius has brought this up by pointing out that John Paul II's allowance of a Muslim ritual at the canonization of the Franciscan proto-martyrs dishonors them because they died for refusal to participate in the ritual. Thus, it is a sin against the fourth commandment.

(3) An intentional break with Tradition is a form of theft. Theft is taking what one has no right to take. The Tradition belongs to no one generation, but to the Church of all ages. When one breaks with Tradition, they rob the future generations of the heritage labored for and passed on by generations of the faithful, a robbery that nobody has the right to commit. Thus, a break with Tradition is a form of robbery.

I think Fr. Ripperger's points are very valid and help to demonstrate two things: that breaking with Catholic Tradition is no small thing, but is a matter of tremendous, even earth-shaking significance; and also that this generation (or rather, that of the 1960's) is amazingly arrogant to assume all of the powers to be able to simply cast off Tradition at a whim.

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

"We most humbly beseech Thee Almighty God, to command that these offerings be borne by the hands of Thy holy Angel to Thine altar on high in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty, that as many of us as at this altar shall partake of and receive the most holy Body and Blood of Thy Son, may be filled with every heavenly blessing and grace. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen." -Supplices te Rogamus, from the Canon of the Mass (1962)

Cardinal Ottaviani: "Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful who are already showing signs of restiveness and of an indubitable lessening of faith...errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition. To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both a sign and pledge of unity of worship is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error."

Pope Pius XII: "I hear all around me innovators who want to dismantle the Holy Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, throw away her ornaments, give her a remorse of her historical past. Well my dear friend, I have the conviction that the Church of Peter must assume her past or she will dig her own grave."

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Catholic Books for Nerdy Intellectuals

Pope St. Pius X

1903-1914 "With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race."

St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor Angelicus)

"Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who, because he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all." (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, 17)

Ratko Peric, Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, Herzegovnia

"It is therefore forbidden to claim or to declare in churches and religious communities that Our Lady has appeared or will yet appear in Medjugorje." Seat of Wisdom, by Bishop Peric, 1995

Pope Leo XIII

"Let your solicitude watch and your authority be effective in controlling, compelling, and also preventing, lest anyone under the pretext of good should cause the vigor of sacred discipline to be relaxed or the order which Christ has established in His Church to be disturbed." -Graves de Communi re, 27 (1901)